Gout was the disease of the grand – or so they used to think. The result of glorious excess was a problem in the lower legs. The 1799 Gillray cartoon (pictured, right) on the cover of Dorian Haskard’s new book, The Gout, shows a toff with his...
Ifirst set eyes on David Hockney in 1965, on a day out from Eton to London, when my mother took me to the Kasmin Gallery in Bond Street, where Hockney had his first one-man show in 1963. But I really got to know him in 2004. I was at home in...
It was March 2003 and I was launching my biography of the film producer Sam Spiegel. ‘Can I bring a TV crew to your book party,’ emailed Toby Young, ‘or will Harold freak?’ Toby was referring to Harold Pinter (1930-2008), my stepfather, known...
Once upon a time not long ago – these things move fast – an acronym of the day was DWEM: Dead White European Male(s). Christopher Howse with Michael Heath riffed on it in The Oldie’s May issue (‘Great Bores of Today – The Modern World’). Possibly...
